WW2 guns can take out the Chally 2 from the front (without adons)
However, they can also take out the:
Frontally, all you need is over around 150mm of pen with APHE. The Challenger is not exclusive in having a weak lower front plate, it is an intended design feature of many vehicles.
The main issue is the the addon armour for the Challenger 2 (and Chally 1) underperforms a lot
can kill it with sub 150mm pen APHE
No please don’t give me flashbacks of the ASPRO HMT
Honestly I’d rather see the CR2s drop down to 11.3 as they are not really top tier material. Weakest round at top tier, small ready rack, poor mobility and armour. The CR2E, BN & CR3TD can remain where they are, but the base CR2, 2F, TES and OES can go down .3 BR at the moment. Until they at least fix some things on it.
isnt this the exact reason why its classified as variable thickness armor?
I think you may be right actually, it is strange that it only lists it as variable thickness armour for Challenger 1 mk3. Every other tank with the kit just lists it as 10mm.
Effective thickness is listed as 13mm so I think the 30mm plate isn’t actually modelled. If I’m eyeballing it right, there should be around 40mm of armour there if you take the 10mm value as a base and then add that 30mm plate in front of it.
It could be more so that the Challenger 2s lack the variable thickness modifier actually. It’s hard to tell what it actually means though.
This piece is called turret_08_top_dm in game files, does seem that the CR2 is not modelled as variable thickness, but the part is correct on the CRIII.
CRIII
CR2
Heres a clearer picture of the armour model:
Roughly 87mm LoS on the thicker section:
Thanks for clearing that up. Why can’t they just copy and paste these things over without making them different every time? It would create far fewer bugs. Gotta fight for every mm you can get for that LFP, every mm is another autocannon death prevented lol.
The visual 3D model for CR1s kit is still wrong regardless. It is too small.
The vehicle that was hit was pre-2H and fitted with ERA as in 2E standard. It was hit by an RPG-29 (tandem) but the driver was only injured.
Besides, this is (according to the game) just hollow for no reason
I mean there is driving controls etc as well.
But genuinely being able to kill a challanger 1/2 frontally with a 2.7 tank is bonkers, its LFP is absolutely massive
It’s more of a war thunder crew’s modelling problem. There are already full of driving equipment on the lower hull of challenger 1 and 2.
Chieftain and Challengers LFP aren’t designed to defend against cannon calibre kinetic rounds nor chemical munitions. The ERA TES kit to my knowledge counters RPG 7 but not tandem warheads, the RPG 29 still penetrated, I think it was due to the angle of which it was fired that the driver lost only his toe.
The Dorchester 2F package surely counters tandem warheads as it was introduced in 2006 in response to the RPG 29 incident. It probably also counters kinetic rounds, to what degree it is hard to say but it most likely underperforms in war thunder.
The driver was likely not killed (I believe he lost his foot) because in real life the lower front plate features spall liners.
This has been bug reported and accepted, but 8 months later gaijin has still not added it.
As far as I’m aware, the lower front plate is just 70mm of steel. Hence why all Challenger 2’s entering combat have additional armour added there.
The driver in question only lost a toe. Rest of his foot was fine, if a bit sore.
nah i know the LFP isnt designed to be taking on the cold war era stuff, but a 2.3 BR marder can one tap it through the front easily, as it does not have the mobility to even move out the way.
nitpicking, but the TES kit (assuming you refer to the ones in game) is an NERA.
Part of the issue is Gaijin refusing to believe it is effective against KE penetrators, somewhat our fault collectively when we (accidentally) refer to it as ERA, as opposed to the correct NERA.
(or rather, Gaijin completely mis-interpreting their own game model such that the ASPRO just doesn’t meet the STANAG 4569 criteria)
anyway, iirc 2F was VARMA, and after a cursory search across the internet (and the forum) it would appear VARMA did have some kinetic protection, though to what degree is unclear:
(courtesy of this poster here: British Weapon Systems - Technical data and discussion - #1719 by xfgusta)
unfortunately can’t report using IDR anymore because well reasons, but still.
When I said ERA TES kit I was meaning the theatre entry standard kit that used that ROMOR-A ERA on the hull front, I know the armour along the sides is NERA and that the Dorchester block on the hull front is NERA with the 2F.
I don’t know how relevant it is but it says that VARMA doubles the protection for an additional typical weight of 2.5t. That’s around the same weight Challenger 1 gained from mk1 to mk2 after they said they upgraded the hull to counter T72s. I only say that as it does seem they had the technology at the time to substantially upgrade the armour. I personally find it more likely that the Challenger 1 was upgraded over the hull upgrade being unused and carrying over to the Challenger 2 project.
I don’t know what these ERA blocks are called but what I really don’t get is how each one just counts for a massive slab of ERA. Like they offer no kinetic protection and multiple get blown off at a time. They are so obviously modelled totally wrong.
This happens with all Western add-on armor. For example, the C1A2 Mexas’ armor should be able to stop heat up to around 500mm and at least 90mm against kinetic, since it was designed to stop the APDS of the Soviet 30mm cannon.
You often find that russian stuff is given the benefit of the doubt, whereas other nations… not so much.
Yes, it’s funny. Also, for example, depending on which model of ROMOR armor it was, it had around 30mm of resistance against kinetic. Another sad case in the game is the Brenus, the Brenus ERA is basically the French equivalent of the Kontakt 5, stopping 400mm of CE and 100mm of kinetic, and all at 60º.
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/XN0AZmOkU0Ym
This was reported and accepted almost a year ago, and even similar reports have been accepted, but it has not been corrected yet. A real shame on the part of the devs, and clear proof that it is not worth wasting time making reports, since they are not even corrected once they are accepted.
